Dangnabbit all to hell I say! That’s right I said it, I said Dangnabbit all the bloody way to hell.

There I was stuck in 1983 thanks to Téa’s time travelling dial. I was minding my own business, half pissed but minding my own business, walking down the middle of the road and some pig headed copper got pissy with me because a fellow country man of mine, who I had never met, whipped Dennis Conner’s arse, or ass, and won the America’s Cup.

Honestly if anyone had the right to be pissy it was that Dennis Conner bloke, fancy loosing a mug to a bunch of kanagroo herders after holding it for 132 years. It’s that kind of history that will see the guy laughed at forever. But did it give the idiot sheriff who arrested me the right to be pissy at me as well? I didn’t think so.

As I sat in my cell and wondered if Téa would, or even could, save me I sang to myself.

“Hey Mr Bond
It’s all gone wrong
You won the cup
The pussy locked me up
Can you give it up,
Give it up, give up the cup.
Give it up.”

I don’t have the best singing voice, I can admit that, but there was no one else in the cells with me to annoy with my singing anyway. My only real aim with singing as loudly as I did was too see if I could piss the sheriff off a bit more. He obviously had a thing against us Aussies learning his mob on how to sail boats in his own backyard but that was no reason why I couldn’t annoy him a little more.

However it appears my singing to piss the sheriff off was to no avail because he wasn’t even in ear shot, the prick was out arresting Australians. Well only one Australian but stuff it that’s two for two so he was either racist or a poor loser.

My new cell mate wasn’t even a current Aussie, he’d been living in the US for nearly ten years, in fact he’d been living in the same bloody town he was arrested in. Even worse, he was married to the sheriff’s sister, the sheriff was obviously a moron as well.

I introduced myself to my new cell mate, he was a fellow Aussie and his name was Elliott Col and he turned out to be one of the funniest buggers I had ever met. His comments about the sheriff not only made laugh but made the sheriff as grumpy as hell. The sheriff threatened Elliot with everything but Elliot just kept laughing at him and making more jokes. Because the humourless bastard could see me I tried my hardest not to laugh at Elliott’s jokes and his songs for with my singing was inspired, but several times laughter just seeped through.

“You’re in a enough trouble already, if you keep encouraging this idiot you’ll make things much worse for yourself.” the sheriff said without getting up from his desk.

“Make things worse?” I couldn’t help myself I had to speak up. “How can I make things worse, I don’t even know why you locked me up.”

“He locked you up because he’s a big fat pussy that thinks losing some big mug means something!” Elliott said.

I had no intention of rising, or lowering, myself to the level Elliot was on but the way the sheriff was acting it did seem like it was all jealousy driven, so much so I wondered if the guy moonlighted on the the Liberty as an anchor.

“I warned you on the way here that you needed to keep your fucking big mouth shut. Sandy wont be saving your ass this time!” the sheriff called.

“You’ll do exactly as she tells you to do you fat bastard because you know darn well you are shit scared of her!” Elliott them turned to me and said in a lower voice. “Don’t worry she’ll make sure he drops any bullshit charges against you too.”

I said thanks by nodding because I didn’t get a chance to speak before the sheriff was ranting again. I didn’t understand all of his rant because apparently much of it was an “in thing” between family members but I did understand the bit where he told us to settle down and go to sleep. I also understood, and quiet clearly understood, the part where he told me I was due in court at 9am the following morning to answer to the charges.

I was somewhat surprised to see there was a single charge, let alone multiple charges, and honestly I was too scared to even ask what the bloody hell they were given how rabid the stupid sheriff was becoming.

I’m not exactly sure how it happened but I did actually get some sleep on that hard bed with no pillow and no blanket. I don’t know for sure how much I got but I know I got some, no doubt thanks in part to the amount of alcohol I had consumed.

A few minutes after I woke up I heard a voice, it was the moron sheriff and it was coming from somewhere I couldn’t see.

“He’s down here and he’s in a lot of trouble. He is expected in court in thirty minutes and quite frankly he’s lucky you are here.”

I looked around the cell for some reason expecting to see Elliott getting up to greet whoever was coming to visit him. But Elliott wasn’t there.

Where was he? I didn’t know.

Was he actually there to begin with? I didn’t know that either.

Was he just a figment of my imagination that penned a song and left?

It was at that moment the stupid sheriff came into view.

“Mr. Barnes, your lawyer is here to take you to court.” The sheriff said without a hint of his arrogance from his night before.

I was about to question who my lawyer was when I saw Téa standing next to the uniformed monkey.